AP Photo/Matt Sayles What is Kim Kardashian wearing? Kim Kardashian and the rest of her family was out on the red carpet for the Kardashian Kollection Launch Party. Why do people want to dress like the Kardashians? Also featured today:… Continue Reading →

Also featured today: Mira Sorvino is aging very very well; Milla Jovovich is the kind of mom that brings her kid to a haute couture event; and Gene Simmons should never throw a baseball in public again.

Also featured today: Dolly Parton talks about her womanhood; Anne Hathaway thinks it’s fashionable to wear oversized glasses; and John Travolta gets awarded for “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Don’t know what that is? You’re most likely under 30.

If thereâ€™d been any justice, “Gone Baby Gone,” Ben Affleckâ€™s taut directorial debut, shouldâ€™ve been a contenduh for best picture.

For one thing, it has the yearâ€™s most thought-provoking ending.

Then thereâ€™s the way Affleck bathes the film in a tough, Boston, working-class atmosphere that complements the edgy story based on “Mystic River” writer Dennis Lehaneâ€™s novel.

Affleck made all the right moves, beginning with believing Casey Affleck, his younger brother, could carry the movie. Casey does just that as a private investigator who, with his girlfriend/partner (Michelle Monaghan), works with reluctant police officers to locate a missing child.

The younger Affleck, who earned a supporting-actor nomination for “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,â€™â€™ hits the daily double with this go-round as a shrewd, hardened but compassionate shamus still living in the neighborhood where he, the missing girlâ€™s family and many of the suspects grew up.

The supporting cast â€“ Monaghan, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman as cops and Amy Madigan (Harris’ wife) as the girlâ€™s troubled aunt â€“ also excel, but itâ€™s Oscar-nominated Amy Ryan who is the real standout as the girlâ€™s low-rent single mother.

Extras: An overly ballyhooed alternate ending consists of a couple lines of narration added to the last scene, which plays better without them; an extending opening gives a peek at the private-eye couple at work; audio commentary; a look at the pains taken to capture the flavors of the area; deleted scenes.

Jane, Jane, Jane

Thereâ€™s no escape: Last week, it was “The Jane Austen Book Club,” this week, â€œBecoming Jane.â€ Whatâ€™s next: “Calamity Janeâ€™â€™ (in which Jane Austen moons over Wild Bill Hickock)?
In “Becoming Janeâ€™â€™ â€“ whose drawn-out storytelling grew difficult to sit through â€“ Anne Hathaway harnesses her natural comedic tendencies, letting loose only in snippets of wit as she portrays the future author experiencing love, life and class troubles that lay the groundwork for her novel “Pride and Prejudice.â€™â€™ (The filmâ€™s fiction but based on fact.)

Hathaway, who takes some getting used to in the role, brings spunk and soulfulness to the well-dressed film. “Atonementâ€™sâ€™â€™ James McAvoy, the heartthrob of the moment, plays Tom Lefroy, the rascally, wastrel attorney with whom Jane becomes smitten â€“ to the consternation of her hardscrabble mother (scene-stealing Julie Walters).

Mom wants Jane to eschew affection and marry well, for Janeâ€™s sake and for their familyâ€™s. All Jane must do is swallow her standards and say “yesâ€™â€™ to the wealthy neighborâ€™s (Maggie Smith) stodgy son. The periodâ€™s rigidity drizzles through the story.

Extras: A who-is-Jane Austen piece with an authority from the “Jane Austen Book Clubâ€™â€™ extras; pop-up facts and footnotes; deleted scenes; audio commentary.

Predictable menu

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart play adversarial chefs who eventually start cooking in â€œNo Reservations,â€ the yearâ€™s most predictable romantic comedyâ€“of-sorts.

Based on the German film “Mostly Martha,” the story focuses primarily on Zeta-Jonesâ€™ workaholic character and her relationship with her gloomy young niece (Abigail Breslin), whom she inherits when the childâ€™s parents die in a car crash.

Clueless at mothering, Zeta-Jonesâ€™ character amps up the insecurity when she returns from a brief leave to find the handsome, gregarious sous chef Eckhart hired to help out in the upscale restaurant.

Eckhart is the filmâ€™s bright light. Zeta-Jones creates a believable, slow-to-warm, stick-in-the-mud. Breslin is Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”). The food scenes are the movieâ€™s most delectable.

The dialogue needs seasoning., but despite the picture’s lame spots, it’s an OK pick for Valentineâ€™s Day viewing.

Extras: A Food Network episode of “Unwrapped.”

Iâ€™m from Venus. You?

Widowed sci-fi writer John Cusack decides to adopt a child as a single man in â€œMartian Child,â€ a poignant, offbeat story that rides well on the chemistry between Cusack and Bobby Coleman as the 7-year-old title character, an orphan who isolates himself from others by insisting heâ€™s from Mars.

Though oozy with syrup in parts, the movie plays better than you expect, in large part because of the casting.Joan Cusack plays the writerâ€™s sister and Amanda Peete a
is his girlfriend.

Extras: Watchable ones covering the real “Martian Childâ€™â€™ (subject of an acclaimed story by the real boyâ€™s father, David Gerrold â€“ who also wrote “Star Trekâ€™sâ€™â€™ “The Trouble with Tribblesâ€™â€™) and Colemanâ€™s casting and preparation (the director compares the boy to Kurt Cobain in terms of spontaneity and charisma); commentary; deleted scenes.

Also on DVD

“The Amateurâ€™â€™: Residents of a small town work with the community to realizyou expect, in large part because of the casting; with Jeff Bridges, Ted Danson, Lauren Graham.

“Blue Stateâ€™â€™: Deciding to honor his vow to move to Canada if Bush won the 2004 election, a young activist (Breckin Meyer) finds a quirky hitchhiker (Anna Paquin) to join him in this coming-of-age comedy.

“Dirty Laundryâ€™â€™: In a kind of lower-budget “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins,â€™â€™ the culture-clash comedy takes a successful New York writer back to his traditional Southern home after a 10-year absence; with Loretta Devine, Rockmond Dunbar and Jenifer Lewis.

“Furnace â€“ Unratedâ€™â€™: Supernatural creepiness with Tom Sizemore, Ja Rule and Danny Trejo in a prison where bloody suicides are the norm after an old wing is unsealed.

“Love Is My Religionâ€™â€™: Ziggy Marleyâ€™s 2006 concert in L.A.

“The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nunâ€™â€™: Documentary about an aging Danish bachelor who teams with a stubborn Russian nun to transform a rundown castle he donates into a Russian Orthodox monastery.